'Catastrophic levels of potential humiliation would surely be stored up on every page.' Photograph: Getty

In five days' time it will be the celebration of the 30th anniversary of Adrian Mole's birth (or, for the prosaic, first publication). I know: 30 years. How did this happen? Anyone? Anyone?

I can't bear to reread them. Not because I wasn't a fan – I was – but because I remember so clearly, so vividly, the horror that the notion of diary-keeping unleashed. By some utter grace of God, it was not the possible cathartic pleasures occasioned by putting pen to paper that hit me, but the catastrophic levels of potential humiliation that could and would surely be stored up on every page. Despite being a prepubescent moron (and I was so stupid that I believed at this point, and for quite some time afterwards, that Adrian was real and the Sue Townsend woman was someone who had helped him type it on to all the pages), I knew immediately that there would be nothing in the world that could ever tempt me to indulge in such a foolish habit. Smoking, drugs, unprotected sex with scabby scrotes from the local boys' school – I would have diligently attended arguments in favour of all these. But diaries? Never.

You wouldn't even have to have it discovered by your mum – though the thought still makes me so weak with fear and dread that I can hardly type. You'd simply have to keep it and grow older. Imagine rooting happily one day through your drawers of amiable clutter, perhaps looking for a pen or a contraceptive, and suddenly being presented with your younger self. Your terrible, awful, hideous self, rendered even more so by the grotesque additions of angst and innocence, self-importance and roiling insecurity, pure certainties and crippling doubts – perfectly preserved by your own damning and unformed hand.

You berk.

Of course, looking back, I realise that I would actually have been quite safe keeping a diary. The average North Korean citizen was having more rambunctious fun in the early 80s than I was. I wasn't putting a single noxious thing into my body – be it drink, drugs or penises – and my mother didn't allow me to have hormones or feelings ("That includes hunger and coughing," read the memo) until I was 26 and had my own flat. Kidz today, I gather, are different and consider a day empty of orgiastic delights uploaded and shared on the internet a day wasted. They probably just use their diaries to keep track of their shooting schedules and STI clinic dates. My entries would have read:

Dear DiaryMonday/Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday/Friday Went to school. I took careful and detailed notes of everything the teacher said because I honestly don't think they would bother telling us stuff if it wasn't going to come in useful in future, even if I can't quite see how yet.

Saturday Another week of schooling successfully completed without me demonstrating the faintest spark of intellectual curiosity or independent inquiry. I am very glad, because I would not like my geography folder to get scorched.

Sunday Read my Enid Blytons for the 807th time. My sister has started calling me The Sofa Fungus. Other than that, I've no complaints.

Still, better to weep for a life fungally lived than risk embarrassment, I say.